Destination: United States
Tom Petty’s Los Angeles, from a Travelodge to a Long Day in Reseda
by Jim Benning | 01.17.08 | 11:59 AM ET
Photo by SykoSam via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Living in Southern California, which features prominently in so many pop songs, it’s hard not to develop a soundtrack that reverberates through your head. For me, sweet and melancholy Tom Petty songs are a big part of that. I can’t drive along Mullholland, or on the 101 through the Valley, for example, without hearing “Free Fallin” (“I wanna glide down over Mulholland”) or those lines about the “long day living in Reseda,” with the “freeway running through the yard.” In fact, passing through Reseda, against my better judgment, I always find myself keeping my eye out for that sad house by the freeway.
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Yahoo! BuzzFortune Cookies Exposed: Turns Out, They’re Japanese
by Julia Ross | 01.16.08 | 4:33 PM ET
I’ve always considered fortune cookies to be a prime example of Chinese-American entrepreneurship, developed by early 20th century immigrants to draw Americans into chop suey houses in the San Francisco area. Or so went popular history. Now a fascinating New York Times article has blown the fortune cookie’s cover: A Japanese graduate student has traced the tradition to several family bakeries outside Kyoto, Japan, where they have been tucking paper fortunes into crimped brown wafers since the 1870s.
National Geographic on North Dakota: A ‘Giant Skeleton of Abandoned Human Desire’
by Joanna Kakissis | 01.15.08 | 2:33 PM ET
And not surprisingly, North Dakotans are livid. Charles Bowden’s beautifully written but wholly depressing The Emptied Prairie about the flat, wind-whipped, lonely state has so disturbed residents that they are writing to the magazine in protest, calling the article, among other things, “the babbling of a delusional mind.”
‘Too Many Innocents Abroad’ in the Peace Corps?
by Michael Yessis | 01.15.08 | 2:19 PM ET
Former Peace Corps volunteer Robert L. Strauss argues so in a recent New York Times opinion piece, writing that the “overwhelming majority” of people who join are recent college graduates who too often “lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.”
Jackson on my Mind
by Eva Holland | 01.15.08 | 11:06 AM ET
Photo by dbking via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Speaking of how confusing geography can be, I’ve been planning a big road trip in the South in March, and I’m hoping to hit some major music history landmarks along the way. Memphis is a no-brainer, but I’d like to see some lesser-known sites too, and even places where there may not be anything concrete to see, but where the name still means something to me. I thought Jackson could be one of those places—you know, the Jackson town that Johnny Cash and June Carter sing about?
Big Waves Roll Through Mavericks
by Jim Benning | 01.14.08 | 10:47 AM ET
Saturday was a good time to be in northern California. Pro surfers from around the globe and thousands of spectators converged on the legendary surf spot near Half Moon Bay for the sixth edition of the Mavericks big-wave contest. The wave breaks a good distance offshore, and spectators who didn’t want to peer through binoculars had an interesting option.
Why Does Los Angeles’ Metro Rail Stop Two Miles Short of LAX?
by Jim Benning | 01.10.08 | 10:32 AM ET
“I used to believe in conspiracies,” says a former city councilwoman, “until I discovered incompetence.” (Via LAObserved)
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Hey America, Make With the !@~$ High-Speed Rail Already’
Marilyn Monroe, Same-Sex Marriage and the Meaning of Niagara Falls
by Michael Yessis | 01.09.08 | 4:48 PM ET
A recent international incident notwithstanding, Niagara Falls’ moment in the sun has long passed. Yet, as a story in the latest Believer says, it still packs a hell of a symbolic wallop.
‘Three Tourists Mugged in the Quarter? No Big Deal.’
by Eva Holland | 01.08.08 | 12:35 PM ET
I’ve been following Sarah Hepola’s Nerve.com column “Crying In Restaurants”—a series of essays about her romantic misadventures, most of which involve (you guessed it) crying in restaurants. The series’ finale has all the humor, insight and almost-uncomfortable honesty as the first five installments—and it’s also a travel story. Hepola writes about her violent mugging in post-Katrina New Orleans, which, amazingly, has a happy ending: the mugging leads her, by way of a friendly detective, a nasty defense lawyer, a couple of NYC-NOLA flights and a whole lot of long-distance phone calls, to an outcome so good she’s no longer (you guessed it again) crying in restaurants.
Photo by David Paul Ohmer via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Chop Wood, Carry Water, Party in Vegas
by Jim Benning | 01.03.08 | 1:25 PM ET
Operators of Prive at Planet Hollywood recently asked a Buddhist monk to bless the new Las Vegas nightclub. The club’s managing director told the Los Angeles Times: “He burned sage and blessed the club, worked with us on our energy, got our minds focused right. We did meditation and had acupuncture for all our key employees. It is important to us that there is no ego and we work as a team.” Top that, Club Tao.
Photo of Buddha statue in Japan by aakaakaakaakaak via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
In New Orleans, A Streetcar Returns
by Julia Ross | 01.03.08 | 11:31 AM ET
A piece of pre-Katrina New Orleans staged a quiet return last month, to the thrill of storm-weary residents and tourists. The St. Charles Avenue streetcar is once again ferrying passengers from the French Quarter to the Garden District. Reports the New York Times: “The streetcar has represented something else besides the connections through time and space: the city’s living room, a privileged spot for tentative social encounters across lines of race, class and nationality, in a place not otherwise given to them.”
Related on World Hum:
* The Critics: ‘Chasing the Rising Sun’
* Rolf Potts in New Orleans: A Visit to the Lower Ninth Ward
Photo by dbking via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
2007: The Year in U.S. Passports
by Jim Benning | 12.27.07 | 4:27 PM ET
We American travelers often complain that too few of our fellow citizens hold passports, but perhaps we can complain a little less in 2008. Reports the AP: “The State Department issued a record 18.4 million passports in fiscal year 2007, compared to 12.1 million in 2006. Thirty percent of Americans now hold passports, up from 27%.” The boost was thanks largely to new passport requirements, not because the nation suddenly awoke to the joys of international travel. And according to the same report, Americans are expected to travel closer to home over the coming year because the dollar is so weak overseas. But we have to take the good news where we can get it, right?
Related on World Hum:
* How I Scored a New U.S. Passport in One Day
* U.S. Passports in Demand: Lines Look ‘Like a Rolling Stones Concert 25 Years Ago’
* The New U.S. Passport: ‘It Is Like Being Given A Coloring Book That Your Brother Already Colored In’
U.S. to Cap Flights at JFK, Newark Liberty Airports
by Michael Yessis | 12.20.07 | 12:53 PM ET
Airline carriers and the United States government have agreed to limit the amount of peak-hour flights at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International, two airports where extreme congestion has caused ripples of flight delays and cancellations across the country. At JFK, only “82 or 83” landings or takeoffs will be allowed per peak-hour, down from as many as 90 according to USA Today; the limit hasn’t been set for Newark. Both limits are expected to be finalized by the time the caps take effect on March 15, 2008.
Related on World Hum:
* New York’s JFK vs. Frankfurt Airport
* JetBlue Apologizes for Stranding Passengers on Planes at JFK
What’s Your Travel ‘Dealbreaker’?
by Eva Holland | 12.19.07 | 3:09 PM ET
Not long ago I went for drinks with a few girlfriends and, of course, before too long we gave in to stereotype and turned the conversation to bad dates, bad ex-boyfriends, bad-boys in general. One friend told a story about a relationship that had been rolling along smoothly—until she suggested that the two of them visit Paris together. “I’ve been to Paris,” her soon-to-be ex said casually. “They have one in Vegas.”
And the No. 2 Most Memorable Quote of 2007 is…
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.07 | 1:43 PM ET
According to the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, it’s Miss Teen South Carolina’s “tortuous” and now-infamous answer to a question about Americans being unable to locate the U.S. on a map: